Thursday, November 12, 2009

Book Review: Career 2.0

It's about time I posted a review of Career 2.0 - by Jared Richardson and Matthew Bass. In particular, I purchased the print version of the book. There is also a digital version, and the distinction may become important later on.

Inspiration and General Value

I got the book after attending the 'Career 2.0' talk at NEJUG. Like the talk, the book ranks very high on the inspiration front. After all, the talk is why I started this blog. If you're looking for ideas and a general kick in the butt, this is a good book for you. I enjoyed reading it, and I feel I got a good value out of it. As a direct result of reading it, I've been actively working on my career, setting goals, and generally doing more good things.

I even credit the book with successful weight loss. In it, there is a very profound statement regarding goals. If you don't break them down into steps you do today, they don't get done. I can't eat dessert tonight if I want to lose weight. "I'll start dieting next week" does not work. Neither does I'll write tests tomorrow, or I'll learn a new language next year. This applies to everything in life.

Polish, Quality, and Nitpicking

Now that I've talked about how motivational the content is, I have to take a step back and report in some unfortunate quality issues. To be frank, there are a lot of editing errors, as well as some print errors that detract from an otherwise good experience. I find it really distracting when I read a sentence that has extra words that don't belong, or that are in the wrong order. As below:

...it's possible for you to be unexpectedly job hunting at the time same as hundreds...

Now I can forgive an error or two, but there are a lot of what I would deem trivial wording issues that caused me to re-read sentences 2 or 3 times. These should have been caught prior to print, and hopefully these were fixed in the digital version, or in future print versions. Mine, however, has some serious issues. There are grey box side stories in various parts of the book. There were 2 instances where a sentence was cut off by a grey box (or a sentence in a grey box abruptly ended) and never finished. Content is missing. I also assume that in a digital version this would not have happened, and it is some artifact of things getting cropped badly in print only. Either way, I have the print version and this really bummed me out.

Final Conclusion

I enjoyed the book, errors aside, and there are some good stories and good advice in it. There are hand-drawn sketches throughout the book, which I found a refreshing change from the usual. I will certain be referring to the book in the future, and will be re-reading certain portions. Were it not for the print issues, it would get a strong recommendation. As it stands - I would say try the digital version if you want to read the book. There is definite value, there are just a few distractions as well.